get away from importing expensive foreign abrasives. In 1937, LITMO opened the first in the USSR laboratory for calculating machinery that was later transformed into the Department of Mathematical and Computing Devices. By the autumn of 1939 it became one of the institute's top departments and focused on developing electromechanical computing devices and control devices. By 1940, it had over 1,400 students and employed 27 professors as well as 80 associated professors and PhDs. 1941 – 1945 With the beginning of the Second World War, 189 students and 85 staff members went to the front lines, while over 450 joined the People's Militia. Classes continued and only at the end of 1942 the students and instructors were evacuated to the town of Cherapanovo by Novosibirsk. During the Siege of Leningrad, LIFMO continued to operate a military repair facility for the Leningrad front. It fabricated test and measurement instruments for army and navy units. During the Siege, the facility developed improved optical sights, fixed artillery binoculars, gun panoramas, anti-aircraft sighting telescopes, periscopes, machined “cups” for anti-aircraft shells and parts for land and sea mines. After the Siege was lifted, the re-evacuation document was signed on August 10, 1944. The students and instructors returned to the city, and classes started again that October. 1945 – 1992 The university began to actively develop after the war. In the fall of 1945 it opened a new faculty – Electrical Instrumentation, which was soon reorganized into Radio Engineering. Here was established Department of Quantum Radio Electronics, which began to train specialists in this field. Engineering Physics Department was established here in 1946. From this department in 1954 graduated Dr. Yuri Denisjuk, a future scientist, author of discoveries in holography, and laureate of the state award. In 1956, the researchers of the Computing Devices Department began to work on the first calculating machine “LITMO-1” that was finished in 1958. It did binary engineering calculations but the data was entered and the results were presented in the familiar decimal system. A laboratory for laser technologies was opened in the 1960s. The building on Sablinskaya Street, which is now the main campus, was built in the 1970s. The following decade saw the beginning of microprocessor technology research and the opening of the Interdisciplinary Institute of Advanced Studies to train manufacturing professionals in new areas of engineering and technology. 1992 – present In 1992, LIFMO became Saint Petersburg Institute